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Beta'd by VesperRegina, to whom all due thanks!
Their second visit to Risa was certainly an improvement on the first. At least so far.
It had taken a certain amount of persuasion from Trip to induce him to try his luck again, but so far fortune seemed to be smiling on them. They'd visited a number of clubs and had a number of dances with various attractive partners; the night was young, the alcohol plentiful and reasonably drinkable, and there was plenty of their forty-eight hours of shore leave left to enjoy. The two young men strolled down the street, mingling with the happy crowds and bickering occasionally over whose shirt was the more fashionable. Certainly quite a few females whose acquaintance they had struck up since their arrival appeared to be either colour blind or completely devoid of sartorial taste, since Trip's latest ghastly offering didn't appear to present any serious handicap to his pulling-power. That said, he had a smile that more than made up for it; and if an acute observer or a close friend might have noticed that there was a slightly wistful quality to it, it seemed that any lady who did so felt that it only added to his appeal. Malcolm, who was both an acute observer and a very close friend, and who had his own suspicions about the reason for the wistfulness, put extra bite into his attacks over the shirt and did his very best to point the other man towards any female who seemed to find him even remotely attractive. Fortunately for himself there were enough remaining who apparently found a relatively short British armoury officer at least as attractive as a tall American chief engineer, and alcohol went some way towards dissipating his shyness. Far more accustomed than Trip to concealing his feelings, he believed that any wistfulness that he himself might be harbouring was undetectable. Not that he was harbouring any anyway. Not about an extremely pretty junior officer he saw every day working on the other side of the bridge. With whom any liaison would be completely improper.
Certainly not.
"How 'bout this one?" Malcolm's companion appeared inclined to gravitate towards a bar that was in pretty well all respects identical to the one they'd just left, although its more obvious attractions included an agreeable number of persons of the female persuasion (as far as you could tell at first glance – as they'd found to their cost on their previous visit, sometimes you had to be a bit careful finding out before things went too far).
"I dunno. What about that one instead?" He'd have to be careful. The precision of his speech was starting to slide a bit. Which was all very well if all he was out to do was get lashed, but that wasn't the point of tonight's exercise. Better stick to fruit juice at the next port of call. Though some of the drinks he'd had already that had supposedly been made of fruit juice must have been made with some pretty damned potent fruit, that's all he could say.
Trip squinted slightly owlishly across the street. "Looks kinda ... 'la-di-dah' to me."
"We're supposed to be sampling the ... culture, Trip. Let's jus'... just have a quick look. If we don't like it we can always leave."
Muttering something along the lines of 'stiff-assed Brit,' Tucker followed him across to the large, well-lit building that seemed slightly out of place in its surroundings.
Fortune was apparently still with them. Although the door staff did look at them fairly hard (and particularly at that offending item of clothing), the planet's relaxed attitude evidently prevailed here too. They were admitted, and found themselves in a large, well-appointed foyer, in which a considerable number of people were relaxing, either standing around in groups or sitting in the comfortable chairs provided. Music permeated through a pair of large double doors directly opposite the entrance.
"Good grief." An expression of nostalgia crossed Malcolm's face. "Listen to that. It's in perfect waltz time."
"Whoa! I'm not gettin' into any damn' waltzin'!" A look of absolute horror. Trip had already become aware that his shirt was attracting attention, and for some mysterious reason not all of it was favorable. "Hell, I've made my mind up already. This is not my sorta place!"
"Oh, come on. You came into space to be adventurous, didn't you?"
"Adventurous, yes. Suicidal, no. If you wanna go have yourself a waltz, feel free. I'll be in the bar across the road." And with an alacrity that could hardly have been bettered by a cat which has accidentally fallen into a tub of cold water, his friend fairly bounded back out of the door.
"Coward!" he mocked in an undertone, and turned towards the double doors. His upbringing in the Reed household had included tuition in ballroom dancing as a matter of course; he had to fit in with his social equals. Admittedly a year or two had gone by since then, and he certainly wasn't wearing particularly appropriate footwear, but he thought he could still remember enough to get by.
The light inside the room was slightly dimmer than in the foyer outside, so that at first he had to blink a little to get his bearings.
It was a long, high-ceilinged room, complete with a fine wooden floor evidently designed for dancing. Tall mirrors alternated with tall windows, just now shrouded with thick curtains, and the warm air was heavy with perfume and the smell of candles.
His instinctive expectation of a scene from a historical novel, complete with crinolines and Hussar uniforms, was unrealistic and unrealised. Nevertheless, although there was indeed little of the ornate formality of an English ball, there was still an air of well-bred elegance about the scene, and the dancers twirling around the floor were in the main rather better dressed than he. The music time was perhaps no more than a coincidence, and whatever dance was in progress it certainly wasn't a waltz, but it was still pleasant to watch and the steps didn't look beyond the grasp of ingenuity to pick up if you'd had a little training. He moved to one side and leaned against a pillar, thrusting his hands negligently into his pockets and letting his eyes roam in search of any available attractive young lady who looked as though she might welcome the offer of a partner. This wasn't the sort of place he was looking to linger in, but while he was here he might as well try his luck. Trip wouldn't move on without him.
It was no more than a coincidence that his idly wandering gaze chanced on one of the couples on the dance floor. The young man – not human, but not bad-looking – was staring down at his partner with a soft smile on his face. And his partner, slender and delectable in pink silk embroidered with white and gold flowers, her dark hair swept high on her head and tied with white flowers and ribbon, was smiling up at him in return, one hand lying lightly on his shoulder as she rested easily in the curve of his arm. Their whole demeanour told the world that they would soon slip away together.
The pain hit him in the chest as though he'd been shot with a plasma rifle. Whatever she should have been doing it wasn't this, anything but this. After her previous visit she'd spoken of the advances she'd made with learning the local language; in hindsight, he'd been too busy wallowing in his own abject humiliation to have understood that the secret smile he'd glimpsed on her face hadn't been on his and Trip's account at all. Or at least if it was, it had been fuelled by the reflection that a crew member who'd gone planet-side with the averred intention of studying the language had come off better by far than two others who'd gone down making little effort to hide their far less elevated intentions.
As the ship's communications officer she'd have had every opportunity to arrange a second encounter. Certainly there was a confidence, a familiarity between them that said this was not their first meeting. His hands held her with respect and affection but without undue deference. He was sure of his footing with her. If they were not already lovers, tonight they would be.
Tearing his eyes from the smiles that burned into him like acid, Malcolm swung around and stumbled back into the foyer. His first instinct was to seek out Trip, but his friend was far, far too observant for that. He would see the signs in the first glance, and he wouldn't rest until he'd rooted out the cause. Bad enough that he was crumpled over what felt like a death-wound without having to have his anguish exposed before he could come to some kind of terms with it. If only he could have a little time, he could deal with it, he told himself desperately. What right had he to dictate what she could or couldn't do? Ever since he'd become aware that the feelings growing insidiously inside him were in danger of leading him into inappropriate behaviour, he'd hardly allowed himself to exchange a word with her that wasn't either relevant to work or safely in the company of others. She probably thought he was a repressed and humourless 'Brit git' like the rest of the crew did. If anyone suggested that he was actually capable of falling in love with a human being as opposed to a weapons array with a conveniently proportioned gun muzzle, most of his colleagues would probably laugh themselves into convulsions.
He found himself at the bar. No question of fruit juice now. He threw back glass after glass, not caring what any of them tasted like.
The hand on his shoulder made him jump. The passage of scene after torturing scene before his mind's inner eye had destroyed his awareness of time. Trip had come to find him, doubtless wondering if he'd struck lucky with some upper-class stranger. He himself had done well. An arm was crooked around a slender waist, and presumably he'd done his homework to make sure that this pretty blonde was what she appeared to be. Better still – or he'd have thought so half an hour or so ago – she had a pretty friend as well. Black haired, thank God. Although 'at night all cats are grey'…. And apparently the pretty friend thought short British armoury officers had interesting possibilities, even if they were half-cut by now. The short British armoury officer in question couldn't give a damn. The alcohol hadn't been nearly enough of an anaesthetic. He'd take whatever he could get. After all, he didn't have a heart, did he? So nobody would expect him to fall in love, would they?
In the end it had been ridiculously easy. Their hotel wasn't far away. Nobody quite seemed to say in so many words what was going to happen, but somehow he found himself parting from Trip and his blonde on the long landing. He was determinedly blind to the element of puzzled concern in his friend's gaze as he towed his anaesthesia towards his bedroom. If he couldn't get any sleep tonight he was bloody well going to enjoy being awake. He wasn't that drunk. He tried to make himself believe that what was pumping through his veins was excitement, tried to remind himself that this was what he'd come down for, tried to make himself believe that this was what he still wanted. By the time they were both naked on the bed his body was at least part way to believing it, the howl of his physical needs strident enough to drown out at least temporarily the cries of jealousy and grief still echoing in his heart.
Months of celibacy on board ship had done nothing to blunt his skills. Her body was close enough to that of a human for her to learn quickly in the sticky darkness that short British armoury officers have a formidable array of weapons at their command. The UT, abandoned on the side table, found few words it was capable of translating; it did not recognise proper nouns, and the woman hardly had attention to spare for the word that her partner groaned so often into her smooth skin.
Even as exhausted as he was afterwards, he slept badly. He wasn't used to not being alone, and the strange surroundings needled his always tenuous sense of security. Especially when he was in the company of a woman he knew nothing about, whose name he couldn't even remember. At least she seemed to be sleeping soundly enough – a fact that was as reassuring on one hand as it was irksome on the other.
Dawn found him outside in the hotel gardens, slumped on a bench. The temperature was mild enough for him to hardly need his jacket, but he'd slipped it on anyway, partly because his personal possessions were in it but also, strangely, because the sensation of it around his shoulders was comforting in an odd way. As he'd put it on, his right hand had gone almost involuntarily to the badge on his left arm. The sense of belonging went some small way towards filling the void that had opened up in him last night, but it wasn't enough.
It wasn't nearly enough.
Why exactly was he so stricken by what he'd seen? Was he really that much of a hypocrite? Didn't Hoshi have exactly the same right to enjoy herself in whatever way she chose as he and Trip did? She was a grown woman, with a woman's needs and desires. The long months aboard ship must wear on her in exactly the same way. He tried desperately to force himself to be objective, and decided eventually that he could say with honesty that if it had been any other one of the female personnel from the ship he'd have laughed and wished them well. But it hadn't been any other woman. It had been Hoshi. And until last night he really hadn't had the slightest idea of just how much he cared – how badly it would hurt if he found her doing exactly what he'd set out to do himself.
But what if it had been more than that for her? What if that smile represented more than just one of the steps in a strictly temporary acquaintance never intended to last longer than a brief and energetic encounter on the nearest horizontal surface? What if she ... cared for that other man who had mattered enough for her to want to meet him again?
Blind. He'd been wilfully, resolutely blind. Making himself see only the difficulties in having a relationship with any woman on board ship, with the rules against fraternisation so firmly in place. His woeful history of disastrous love affairs might have been some excuse, but in hindsight those had hardly been affairs of the heart. Not one of them had any foundations in friendship, in admiration, in comradeship; they'd simply been attempts to salve his corrosive sense of loneliness, and as such they'd been doomed from the start.
He should have said something. Even if ... even if it couldn't go any further, he should have ... hell, what would have been the point? In the unlikely event of her responding to him it would have left both of them staring into the abyss without a parachute between them. Fraternisation. Not allowed. He'd known that when he signed up. In what was now proved to be the bitterest of ironies, he'd actually approved. He'd thought to himself that it would keep things simpler, preventing the complications that could ensue from permitting romance on board. A crew destined to share the same steel shell for months on end would have enough personnel problems without Cupid's arrows flying around.
And who was to say that she'd have welcomed his interest anyway? On that memorable occasion when she'd been trying to find out what he liked to eat so that Chef could prepare it for his birthday, she'd shied away like a startled horse from his erroneous inference that she was trying to make a pass at him. Hardly the stuff of grand romance there! There were plenty of better looking men than he on board, if she was looking around for romantic involvement. Trip, for one. Although the blond American's real interest lay in quite a different direction (and one that he probably believed fondly to be a secret even from the most observant man on the ship), the exchanges between him and Hoshi at the mess table occasionally took on a mildly flirtatious tone. Only now did Malcolm realise why those incidents had riled him so much. It had sometimes been as much as he could do to keep his attention focussed firmly on the information on whatever book or padd he had with him at the time.
He rested his elbow on the bench arm, put his face in his hand and groaned aloud. Bloody rules. And more bloody fool him for hiding behind them, making them an excuse not to act. Captain Archer wasn't a tyrant. Part of his somewhat unorthodox approach to captaincy almost certainly included the capacity to turn a blind eye to things that contravened the regulations, just as long as they kept his crew happy and didn't interfere with the efficient running of the ship.
Being brought up in the ultra-formal Reed household had instilled in him a rigid respect for authority, to the point where he'd actually complained to Archer himself that protocols weren't enforced strictly enough on board. Rules had become his comfort blanket, and when they were pulled away even a little he loathed the sensation of lost control. Now the blanket was threatening to suffocate him, and he could finally appreciate the captain's approach that a blanket has to be loose enough to allow a little air in, even if a little warmth has to be sacrificed in return.
If only ... they were adults, responsible adults; if for any reason it didn't work out (assuming it had ever got going in the first place) they would have been able to handle it. He'd had to keep that frozen façade in place before now, he could do it again, even if this time the pain would have been worse than anything he'd ever experienced before. Hoshi was a professional too. She'd got enough guts to hold it together, she'd proved that; the timid mouse who'd crept on board ship had grown into a gutsy woman whose heart was far out of proportion to her relatively diminutive size. That transformation was perhaps the root of his fascination with her. He'd never let himself admit that his admiration for the way she'd coped was anything warmer than clinical, that his affection for her was anything different to what he felt for any other member of the crew. He'd never recognised his own cowardice in refusing to make the connections and take the risks.
Now he had to face the consequences. And they were more than he could bear.
"Hey, here y'are. She chucked y'out already?"
With a ferocious effort of will he composed his face within the shelter of his hand before he raised it. "What are you doing up so early, Trip? I wasn't expecting to see you till lunchtime at the earliest." He essayed a smile, but it felt like something a gargoyle would produce. His heart sank even further as he saw from the look on his friend's face that it hadn't achieved what he'd intended it to. Not that there'd ever been much chance of that.
Trip's trademark grin hadn't even partially disguised his concern to start with. Now it vanished altogether. He came forward and sat down on the bench, turning himself towards its other occupant in the manner of one absolutely determined to have a heart-to-heart conversation whether the other party in it likes it or not. "Now for a man who's spent the night in heaven, you sure look like hell. What's wrong, Malcolm?"
"I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about." The stiff, instinctive lie was as transparent as glass.
"It's me you're talkin' to, Loo-tenant. And I want the truth 'stead of that stiff-upper-lip bull you just tried to feed me."
"I had a perfectly satisfactory night, thank you."
"I'm sure you did. And now we've got that out of the way, you can tell me if it was all that satisfactory why you're sittin' out here lookin' like you've got an appointment with Phlox to have your insides removed without an anaesthetic." The kind blue eyes were also uncomfortably shrewd. "I don't generally care for puncturin' people's illusions 'bout themselves, but you're not quite as cute as you think at hidin' things, Malcolm. I'm not gonna name names, but you've got it for her, whether you admit it or not."
He shrank almost physically. "So that's the latest gossip on the ship's grapevine, is it?" he demanded harshly. "The Grim Reaper's finally got his comeuppance?"
Trip ran an exasperated hand through his still rumpled blond hair. "No, it isn't. I haven't heard a word about ya! And will you quit calling yourself that stupid name?"
"Why? It fits me well enough. All I'm good at is destroying things."
"We wouldn't have got this far if you hadn't been good at 'destroyin' things'. When an alien ship's got its sights on our reactor and the cap'n's diplomacy runs out, a guy who's a mean hand with a phase cannon's a real comfort to have around!" Tucker leaned forward and spoke vehemently. "That's your job, Malcolm. That, and keepin' us all safe – and sometimes the only way you can do that is by doin' what you're good at. That's what the cap'n hired you for. That's what he relies on you for. It's a little late to be feelin' ashamed of it."
"I'm not ashamed of it!" he flung back, stung into anger. "I trained for it long enough. I wanted it badly enough. I actually take quite a pride in it, if you want to know! But sometimes I want more, I want something else, can't you understand that?"
"I understand that just fine. Seemed to me we were both lookin' for a mite of 'somethin' else' when we came down here yesterday. And you didn't seem to have any more of a problem than usual till you went to that fancy dancehall. I leave you in there for half an hour and when I catch up with you again you're hittin' the bottle and lookin' like you've seen a –" He broke off and gave his friend a singularly measuring glance. "But it wasn't a ghost you saw, was it?"
"Leave it, Trip." If he'd been a dog he'd have been baring his teeth and snarling. "You're not in a position to give me advice on that score, so just leave it alone!"
The blue eyes narrowed. "I'm not gonna argue with you, Malcolm. I'm not even gonna lie. Come to think of it, I'm not even gonna point out that there's a whole load of difference between wantin' somebody who you could have with one crook of your finger, and wantin' somebody who might as well be at the other end of the known universe."
"'One crook of my finger'?" The self-derision in his voice was ugly. "If she was drunk, alone with me on a desert island and desperate, maybe. But right now it seems she's not desperate. Actually she seemed quite pleased. So my chances don't seem as good as you seem to think."
"Oh, for cryin' out loud! How long's she supposed to wait for you, Malcolm? Don't you think she's done everythin' but strip off and –" He broke off, flushing a little. "But all you ever seem to look at's whatever damn' thing you're carryin' round with you!"
There was a pause. Those irksome flirty exchanges in the mess hall now began to assume a rather different and interesting aspect, but it was a rather alarming idea that for a man who was supposed to be observant he might have totally misread the situation; he'd need to feel his way into this carefully. He felt much the same way as he had when he'd been carrying out the initial inspection of that Romulan mine that had attached itself to the hull. "Carrying round with me?"
"In the mess hall! The one place on the ship you actually get a chance to talk to people! But not Loo-tenant Reed, oh no! Not our pet stiff-assed Brit, walkin' round the place inside his own personal palisade and wonderin' why he's all on his own!"
"What the bloody hell am I supposed to say?" he hissed. "'Hi, Hoshi, in spite of all the rumours to the contrary I actually am a human being and no I don't get off with a gun muzzle every night, and actually I've fancied you for months but I was too bloody scared to ask you out because it contravened regulations'?"
"Well. Needs a bit of trimmin' down, but you've got the basic idea." A big satisfied grin appeared on Trip's face and Malcolm realised with embarrassment that in his rage and frustration he'd just shot every piece of his cover to flinders. Which was undoubtedly what his senior officer had intended all along.
"I don't suppose she'd accept anyway," he muttered. "And then we'd both be embarrassed. It was bad enough the first time. I could hardly look across the bridge for weeks." Seeing his companion's puzzled expression, he briefly related the unfortunate misunderstanding about the birthday treat. "She made it clear enough then that she wasn't interested," he ended rather dismally. "Why should she feel different now?"
"Yeah. I can just imagine how interested you looked. Like you were walkin' down a quiet country road and all of a sudden you found you were about to be hit by a freight train. That's sure goin' to encourage a girl to take her chances with you."
A tendril of reluctant hope wound up amid the black thorns of despair. He squashed it firmly under the boot of his perennial pessimism. "You didn't see her last night. She looked happy."
"Happy? She probably was. Happy to be with a guy who'd look at her and smile. Notice what she was wearin'. Pay her a compliment. Most ladies like that kinda thing, Malcolm. You should try it once in a while. Works wonders."
He bit his lip. Could it really be that simple? Whether he wanted it to or not, that reprobate and irrepressible tendril emerged again from beneath the heel of his boot, and he studied it cautiously.
"Unless you're so uptight you're gonna hold last night against her, of course," added Trip dryly.
Reed lifted his head and offered a wry grin. "I'm really not in a position to preach, am I?"
"Unless you're a whole lot saintlier than I am, I guess not."
He looked up at the hotel. The sun was fully up now, and its reflection shone blindingly on the windows. "Trip, what am I going to do?"
"About your lady friend from last night? Just the same as I'm gonna do. Go back inside, smile, say something nice, eat breakfast, say thank you and goodbye. About Hoshi? Forget what you saw last night, smile when we all meet up again, and don't bring your damn' padd or any damn' book with you to the mess hall next time."
"As simple as that." He glanced back at his friend. "A whole lot simpler than your situation, I'm afraid."
"That's life." Trip shrugged and smiled a little ruefully. "I'm the eternal optimist I guess. But hell, I never did take the easy way."
"You can say that again." Malcolm stretched and yawned. "Ow, I'm stiff."
"Thinkin' about Hoshi already?" quipped Tucker.
"Comman-dah, you have a very dirty mind. Come on, I could do with some breakfast."
"Gotta keep your strength up, Loo-tenant. Might be needin' it shortly."
And the two men strolled back into the hotel, laughing.
The shuttle arrived on time, and this time for a miracle its passengers were all present, intact and correct to meet it. Travis had chosen a less hazardous climbing challenge, which he had proudly completed; Jon had spent a completely uneventful couple of days in a beachfront hotel (he didn't go into details, but the gloss of satisfaction on his demeanour suggested it hadn't been entirely free of romance); Trip had visited a local market that afternoon and found a shirt that was even worse than all the others he possessed, and had resisted all attempts to persuade him not to buy it; and Malcolm, visiting the same market, had carefully considered various far more tasteful artefacts offered for sale and purchased something that was now wrapped up and tucked under his arm. Hoshi arrived last, glowing, and made a jokey inspection of each of them to make sure they weren't missing any clothes or hadn't collected any broken bones.
Malcolm risked a glance at her that wasn't his usual professional look, conscious of an index finger prodding the back of his ribs. She had a flower tucked behind her ear. She really did look ... well he wasn't going to use that word. At least not in public. And not in private either, at least till things had moved on a bit. And certainly not in the shuttle when four other people were listening; Rostov might crash it with the shock. "You look most attractive today, Hoshi."
Her eyebrows rose. Her mouth curved delightfully. "I'm glad you think so, Malcolm."
Jon and Travis shared an open-eyed, what-the-heck's-got-into-HIM look.
Trip leaned over his shoulder. "Attaboy, Romeo," he whispered. "Now keep it up."
He composed his face into its usual aloof expression and looked at the viewscreen instead. He tried not to think of the contents of the package under his arm. If ... when he got to see her wearing that, he could guarantee he'd have no problems at all in 'keeping it up.'
It had been a worthwhile trip to Risa, after all.
The End.
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